Moving Image logs media history hub

Museum launches online information center

Gotham’s Museum of the Moving Image has launched a new Internet informational hub devoted entirely to the history of film, television and digital media.

Marking the Moving Image Source’s Web debut today at Movingimagesource.us is a conversation with filmmakers Werner Herzog and Jonathan Demme at the Times Center in midtown. Herzog’s latest doc, “Encounters at the End of the World,” about life in Antarctica, opens June 11.

Website will feature original articles by leading critics, authors and scholars along with a curated calendar highlighting upcoming major retrospectives, fests and gallery exhibitions worldwide.

The online Research Guide is a database of 400-plus handpicked moving-image related resources that will be annotated regularly and divided into five major categories: people; history and styles; industry; technology and craft; and criticism and ideas. The calendar and articles will be updated each Thursday and are set to list upcoming retrospectives and the release of new DVDs and tomes on film and media. Previous articles will be shelved in the online library.

“There’s nothing like this out there. It combines elements of a journal with elements of a database,” said Moving Image Source editor-in-chief Dennis Lim. “There’s a lot of info on the Internet, but much of it hasn’t been organized. The information on our site has all been vetted.”

“We didn’t just list any old website; someone has looked at the websites and determined they’re worthy of inclusion in our research guide,” said Rochelle Slovin, the museum’s director. “Same is true of our calendars: We’re not just putting any old cinema club on our list; these are bona fide cinema institutions or exhibitions of international art that meet certain curatorial criteria.”

Located in Astoria, Queens, the museum hosts screenings, exhibitions of artifacts, artworks, interactive experiences and various educational programs. The building is under construction for a major expansion that will add a new theater, screening room, galleries and classrooms.

“We’re focusing on the general public. We hope to reach the widest possible audience, but we know it will appeal to scholars, students and cinephiles,” Slovin said.